The Sufi Writing Tradition in Arabic

Abstract This paper addresses Sufi writing in its contemporary third/ninth-fifth/eleventh century CE context, looking at how writing was shaped by other Sufi and non-Sufi forms. Beginning with an overview of the Sufi writing tradition in Arabic during Sufism's formative period, between the early third/ninth and the late sixth/twelfth centuries, the article goes on to discuss early Sufi piety and the ways it challenged common conceptions and epistemological paradigms of early medieval Islamic thought. Looking at the mid fourth/tenth century case of al-Niffarī shows how mystical piety interacterd with a deep-rooted tradition in Arabic literature to forge the unique dynamics of what we know today as Sufi writing.